AUTHOR'S NOTE!!! Hey ducks…this is the last chapter. I just want to thank everyone who's reviewed it, and who's emailed me telling me to continue. It's taken me a while to write, I know, because of time restraints and such, but I finally got it done so here it is! =D Also….I'm writing a short sequel, kind of an epilogue really, but I'm not going to post it here. If you want to read it, REVIEW!! Because I KNOW for a damn FACT that a lot more people have been reading this story than have been reviewing. And if you read all of this (it's almost 300 pages!) the least you could do is drop me a line telling me what you thought!

Sooooo if you're interested in reading the epilogue, leave a review with your email address, or email me, or instant message me, or SOMETHING. Just let me know that you read, and want to read more, and tell me what you thought. THANK YOU!!! XD

And now for the moment you've been waiting for…

Chapter 74

This brings me here. Now.

The phone in Mark's house had been dead, when I think about it now I think I must've caused that, caused a gush of wind to knock loose a tree branch which pulled the wire down. By now I've also pieced together that I caused Paul to come, that after the anger I'd felt towards Mark I wanted an answer. And so Paul came, told me…when I wouldn't accept the truth of it Mark told me again.

They say that…you never know the meaning of life until you're too old to use it. Has this been fated all along? I feel that I have a good grip on what my life is about, and I'm young still. It's taken me this long, because maybe all along it was meant for me to not be able to use it. It was meant all along that things would come down to this- that I'd learn the meaning of life in a thirty-five year curriculum. It's not even my thirty-fifth birthday yet, how sad…

Either that, or maybe…maybe I've always wanted things to be this way? I say that with complete sarcasm…I wish I could be that cynical but I know that it's partially true. Partially only because…only because I don't know. And I'm not sure I want to know.

Or maybe it's in human nature; maybe not the fact that it was fated, just fatal. Maybe it's just human nature to understand something right at the end, to sense that the end is near. Is that possible? Even if maybe I can understand myself now- I can't pretend to answer the other questions.

I know that…I loved her. And I want to believe that I loved her, but I'm not sure, I'm doubting myself. Knowing something doesn't mean shit, and I learned that a few days ago. Everything I knew was false.

Mark was right- there are two sides of me. I've had four days to think about it, and here's what I've come up with:

The real me, the subconscious me, the person who I try to push away, is cold hearted and mean. This is the person who controls what happens to me, the true gatekeeper of this power I possess. This is the side of me that shut down and learned how to function without emotions. This is the side of me who was affected even more deeply by all the tragedies, who learned to treat people like shit because that was the only way people treated me.

When I think about it, I understand that the fire was not my fault, nor was it Mark's, even though we had a part in influencing it. It was my fault because Paul set it with the intention of killing me, Mark's fault because he knew what would happen and never told anyone. And I guess…Paul took me in thinking that he'd be able to use me against Mark, if he couldn't have Mark, then he'd just use me instead. So it was partially Mark's fault and partially mine, but I wasn't going to blame us for what Paul did.

I think I understand the concept that while I always kind of hated Mark I knew he'd always be there, and I just…needed someone to comfort me. That was why he and I were always on and off, and also the reason why he killed Amber and later was nice about it, because I wanted him to.

There's a Norse god, Odin… I think of him, now. Odin- the god of war and death, but also the god of poetry and wisdom. He sacrificed one of his eyes for his wisdom, his remaining one blazes. Is that not…me, in some way? Two sides, two eyes, one of which was never really there. One eye which was blind, one personality that was silent.

Once you know about your subconscious there's no forgetting it. I can't just pretend again that I didn't know it existed, I can't act the way I've been acting because of it.

It's funny, all this time I never even knew what was going on, I was perfectly fine (fine, not happy, mind you) just being who I thought I was and ignoring it. It seems absurd to think that this side of me is really just somebody I'm trying to be, because…it seems to fit so well. But ever since I knew it, I feel…I don't know what it is. I always thought I would never be cruel and horrible, and now that I know that I am on the inside, I can kind of think like that side, I can understand everything that's going on, I can think of Amber…and admit it.

My hand shakes as I write, my eyes are tearing. I'm contradicted, because that person I've grown so used to being doesn't want to let go of the fact that he loves her, yet the person who I really am…can openly admit that it was true.

Here I am, I'll write it out- everything Mark said was true. I wanted her dead from the moment I met her.

It wasn't Amber's fault. It really wasn't, it was Mark's. I mean…when I think about it, it should have been pretty obvious that he killed her, I think the reason no one realized it was because he was spellbinding them to make them forget about it, to not think about it. That's how he dealt with the cops, and I was oblivious on this whole matter. So sure, it was Mark who killed her. But it's more my fault than his.

He says I've been controlling his life, but the truth is that he's also been controlling mine.

So I see now the sequence of my downfall. I was never cruel, just mindless. That was when my sides started branching off from each other. The angry side of me just wanted to be loved, I think that's why the nice side took over. I acted the way a nice person should act, I tried to be…what I wasn't. The weird thing is that it really what I was, I was…fuck I don't know. I just don't know anymore. I'm fucking confused about the whole thing.

I'd like to think that most of who I was being was genuine, only because it all felt so genuine. These past few days I've just felt empty trying to decide who I really am. Because now I see both sides of it, I can track all my past events with anger that almost overrides the way I felt at the time. I guess if…if I could create the person I became, it must be real…it can work that way, right?

Fuck.

It's hard being told something like this, when you couldn't even figure it out by yourself. I feel angry. I feel stupid. I feel sick. I feel confused. Every feeling I've ever had up until now should be erased because it was diluted by all the lies.

So anyway…it's been four days since what happened. After I left Mark's house, I got to the end of the driveway and turned back. I went back into his house, took his stupid metal box, rationalized and got my wallet and all that…then I went out to his shed, found gasoline, and came back inside. I sprinkled it all over his and Paul's bodies, then around the house until it was empty. I dropped a match.

I was crying when Mark's body caught, as I watched the fire go from where I was standing to fluidly spreading over the floor, over the table, then onto him and all the blood. Quickly then to Paul. I was surrounded by the flames but they were severe yet, they hadn't really caught to anything just then and only existed on the gas. That's how those things are, you know?

The smoke that had started to come up was choking me, filling my head with memories that I wished I didn't have. I walked over to Paul, standing a couple feet away, staring at him. The fire singed his hair, started to catch to his clothes. Black smoke came up from him, making me cough and filling the room with this terrible smell that I remembered all too clearly. I couldn't stop crying.

"Burn, you bastard," I shouted. I kicked his body, too fast to let the fire hurt me. I just wanted to kill him again, and again. I couldn't get satisfaction from it. Mark was a different story, however. When I turned to him I just…wanted to bring him back to life. But I knew it was too late for that. I kept having wisps of thoughts that this was revenge, until I remember that he hadn't actually started the fire, which just made me hate Paul so much more.

I stepped over to Mark, around the fire that was growing, staying carefully distant from it. I knelt down, reached out my hand to let the flames coming off of Mark's body touch me, but not burn me. I held my hand there until it hurt too much, when I curled it into a fist and slowly pulled away. He could not hurt me anymore. At the same time he couldn't comfort me, either.

While I was sitting there I envisioned him coming to life, strangling me with his burning hands. This vision made me scream, made me fall back and land in a ring of fire. My pants caught, and I managed to smack the flames away before they hurt me. I screamed, stared at Mark's body once I realized it wasn't happening. I was just losing it, freaking out. I stared at him some more, stared at the hair that was burning, the clothes, the skin and the tattoos.

I'd like to hope that he always knew how much…part of me loved him. I mean I guess this raw side of me loved him in a way, either that or it was just some sign of desperation. Wanting a savior and loving someone are different, I guess. Even if he says that person on the inside always hated him, I'm sure he could've sensed that I loved him. He needs to know, I don't know what I'd do if…

It hits me now and then when I think about it, makes me shake, makes my heart pound. I killed him. I killed him. It's almost too much to bear, but I know that I shouldn't regret it. He deserved it. Amber deserved it, so did my daughter, so did my son.

Amber saved me. I look back and I do not regret knowing her, or loving her. I also don't regret learning the truth about what happened, as much as it contradicts itself. My thoughts are that I only wanted her dead because I loved her, because I was so scared that she'd end up leaving me anyway, like everyone else has. So it was a…tiny bit beneficial to me that if she had to go at all she went the way she did. Better that she was murdered than to have her leave me or cheat on me or break my heart some way while she was still alive. Better that she died in 2001 rather than waiting until we'd known each other for ten or twenty years. If we'd known each other for a long time, had more than just Claudette and Armand in our family with us, it would've been…much harder.

Harder! Hah, who am I kidding? By "harder" I mean that I would never have lasted this long without her.

So I never hated her, I never wanted to hurt her, if anything those feelings are geared towards myself. It was a defense mechanism, I just didn't want to get screwed over again. So…I screwed over myself to spare the added pain. Amber, Claudette, Armand, were just casualties but honestly it wasn't their fault. I can't stress that enough. If they were still around I think that everyone reading would know by now that I'd never hurt any of them.

"Alas…how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise, Johnny?"

This whole situation just sucks. The past few days I've just been thinking about it, pausing from writing for a few minutes here and there to just lean back and think about it. It honestly reminds me of Angel Heart, which I keep thinking of, seeing Mickey Rourke's pale, horror-stricken face, hearing him screaming:

"I KNOW WHO I AM!!!"

It's funny how all that entertainment and media just kind of forms a scaffolding around your life. That's how things work now, in the past…what? I guess like most of the twentieth century. Not my childhood so much (for obvious reasons) but my adult life has been decorated by music and movies, like a companion. It's crazy the way I've been thinking about all these actors and lines and colour schemes as if they were all a part of me, which they are sometimes. Is that my version of having my life flash before my eyes?

God…I don't know what I'm talking about. I suppose I'm just stalling because I'm nervous, or something. Fuck if I know. But haven't we already established that I'm helpless and confused?

I'm just repeating myself, I know, I know. If you're reading this for…leisure or something I'm most likely boring you.

But can you blame me?

More lines break into my memory. How about the girl Angela in Silent Hill Two? Slowly walking up a burning flight of stairs, James going "It's hot as hell in here…" then Angela says: "You see it, too? For me…it's always like this…" then makes her ascent.

Anyway…I'm just wasting time, my time, your time. How about I cut to the chase?

After I left Mark's house for the second time, I drove to the airport, acted like nothing was wrong and was able to get on a plane to Indianapolis with little trouble. I bought a few notebooks in the airport, also a couple pens, and the whole way there I wrote. I wrote things as I remembered them, starting the night all this shit started, the night I met her. Exactly four years ago.

I had one of the notebooks filled by the time the ride was over, and got back to the apartment before I wrote more. I wrote and wrote and wrote…by the next day I'd already had three filled up, then went out to get some more. To tell the truth my hand hurts like a bitch.

On breaks from that, when my hand absolutely needed a break (reminded me of the days wrestling, doing autograph sessions), I would just walk around the apartment, touch her things, think about everything. Then I would just go sit back down on the floor in front of the coffee table or in a chair at the kitchen table, lying down on my stomach on the bed, writing there…wherever time took me. Everything else faded as I just went back in my head, described everything exactly how I remembered it, all the happiness, all the sadness, all the anger. Nothing mattered, not the hunger, not the tiredness, nothing. I just wrote, and wrote and wrote and wrote.

This is my tribute, this is my legacy. This is the word that should be spread so that everyone can see what a queen Amber really was, and what a goddess. This is so that people understand this time, don't sit around in a hospital around my comatose body wondering why it all happened.

When I tried to kill myself the first few times, when I was younger, I never wrote notes. When I tried to kill myself in May I scribbled one at the last second and they weren't even my words, they were just some song lyrics chosen because Saphrin would understand. But my audience is not just Saphrin, is it? More like Saphrin, Raven, Mike, Vince, whoever finds these books, whoever cares. Maybe Amber, Mark, my mother. This is my proof of life, this is my proof of pain and of regret. I was happy once and I tried to get it across the best that I could. I tried to portray the way I felt, and the way I feel now.

If I am Odin, maybe then Amber is Freya. Myths are created from human nature, it's all opinion and belief whether or not they're real. But scientifically and all, saying that none of that shit could happen, they would only be stories made up based on human nature, right? Human nature that means a man can have more than one quality, and a completely different one on the other side, yet still be the same man. These are the complexities that make up human nature. War and death, poetry and wisdom. They are quite different in the normal eye, wisdom and poetry being something refined, beautiful, then there's death, war…what can be said about those?

So one side of me does nothing but worship Amber, the other side is just…

Anyway. My purpose in writing is just to convey how perfect she was, and always will be. That's all I want to do.

I'm freezing my ass off, too.

I've come this far for her. I'd say that I wouldn't be alive if I'd never met her, but I know it's not true. I only know that things wouldn't be right, as they were when she was around. I was never lying when I told her that I couldn't live without her.

So what more is there to say, really?

When was it? Three, four? Sometime in the mid-afternoon I put on a jacket, got some things together (including the metal box) and came down here. It's not snowing out but there's some snow on the ground. It's frozen, I keep looking up at the huge shed on the other side of the property and know that they store caskets in there because the ground is too hard to penetrate. I think I had this thought last year when they were going to bury her, said that I was kind of lucky. I guess that's right, even if I don't want to admit it.

So anyway…my conclusion to all of this is that my life has meant nothing, that I finally thought it was going the right way and it turns out it was all just a big lie. I'm not going to deal with that. The truth? I'm mortified at the thought that this has been going on the whole time, even if Mark and Paul were the only people who ever really knew about it. It's embarrassing, it hurts, I hate them for it. It's strange to feel that way, it's almost the same feeling I got when I admitted that I had to trust Mark. Because I didn't really want to. It's like…there was always this feeling that sucked gravity away, made me feel weightless and lost when I remembered that I  actually trusted someone, which made me feel like my life was not in my own hands. In fact it was, and…well you know. I'm not going to get into it anymore. But my conclusion is that none of this has ever mattered, and I have no reason to deal with this bullshit anymore.

This brings me here, now.

The date is February 14th, 2002. Amber, Claudette, and my unborn son have been dead for a year, and I am sitting on the ground, freezing, wet from the thin layer of snow on the ground that I'm sitting in. I fucking hate snow.

Roman is still there, covered in snow, it's companion the skeletal branches of the lilac bush. It's funny that I can still smell it. And I can smell cigarettes, I don't know why. Maybe I'm so cold that I'm just hallucinating or something like that. How am I ever going to know?

There is some hope in me, way in the back, this tiny tiny bit of warmth that thinks maybe I will get answers. Maybe I'll understand what all of this meant, maybe I'll finally find out who that woman in my dream was. She was smoking cigarettes, right? Maybe this all means something and I just don't know it.

The questions all torture me, as does the fear, as does this numbing feeling I get from being here, from being so cold. I know it's damaging but none of that will matter, the same way I know that all these questions will stop bothering me very shortly.

So here's what I have to say- I meant everything that's been written this past few days, in these notebooks. The notebooks are all in a backpack beside me, the covers properly labeled "Part I", "Part II", "Part III", etcetera, in chronological order.

This book is Part VIII, and I'm almost out of pages, so…I think it's time we part.

If you're reading this, I just want to apologize. For any damage done, for any pain caused, but if you've gotten this far you know why and I can't try to explain that any further.

Just know that I did not spend four days writing, telling, explaining, for my own entertainment, nor did I do it for yours. I did not write to amuse anyone or to make anyone cry, though I'm sure people might when they read it. I do not write out of vanity or as some grab at attention because it's too late for that, and if you're reading you know it.

I just didn't want to leave out any details this time around.

The truth?

It's just my epic suicide note.